Of Domestication and Dread
by Shewritesstuff
Summary: The pancakes, the paper and the perfect pot of pitch black coffee... Yet something continues to ache (Bamon)


**A/N: **written at 5am without any sleep (like I do most of my fics) so please excuse the shoddy grammar.

—-

This wasn't getting old.

Even for someone with a lax attitude towards the concept of eternity, _this wasn't getting old. _

The pancakes, the paper and the perfect pot of pitch black coffee.

It should have been his definition of hell, God knows this flannel shirt was as far from the familiar as humanly possible for Damon Salvatore. But playing house with Bonnie Bennett? It wasn't _half bad_.

"It's good."

"Sorry?"

Without him realising, the tiny brunette had already shoved aside her morning paper and was chewing on her pancakes with a surprising amount of enthusiasm, her head bobbing up and down in approval of his culinary skills. "It's good." She repeated.

Damon flashed a quick smile and returned to gazing into deep dark waters of his coffee.

_It was._

He couldn't pinpoint the moment when it all clicked but here he was feeling warm and fuzzy like a sitcom dad on a Sunday morning. Warm and fuzzy and foreign. The coffee looked hot and comforting. She had poured it for him just as she did ever morning and yet this particular morning he couldn't bring his lips to the mug and take that first comforting sip.

He continued to stare into the scalding darkness as this unfamiliar anxiety crawled down his throat in place of the beverage.

"For someone who was dead before pancakes as we know them became a thing, you aren't a bad cook." Bonnie giggled as she decimated the plate of food before her at an insane speed.

"For someone who died and was poofed into non-existence, you sure have an appetite not too different from an Augustine lab vamp." Damon fired back in his usual sharp fashion but Bonnie paid no attention to him.

It was Damon's turn to shove away his paper but not to lift his fork to his plate.

"How many perfect sunny mornings and gimmicky pancakes has it been Bon?"

Bonnie paused for a moment, eyebrows furled in concern over the sudden seriousness of Damon tone. This was not a voice she was used to hearing in this sunny dimension they had been inhabiting.

"And how many more before you get sick to your stomach of these floury pancakes."

"They aren't floury. They're fluffy and all kinds of wonderful remember."

She was quoting back his words and trying to smile. Damon could no longer stand sitting across the table from her. Holding back the urge to leap across the table and shake her, coffee mug in hand, he crossed the room in a couple of strides and took his place at the kitchen sink instead. There he poured out the deep, dark liquid without any thought.

"Damon?" Bonnie's voice was just an anxious whisper as she approached him from behind and laid a tentative hand onto his shoulder. It was a pleading gesture hoping to coax him into resuming their usually blissful breakfast.

"This isn't heaven. This isn't hell. This is freaking February 2nd and I am starting to lose my patience!"

Damon hadn't meant to raise his voice and the moment he shrugged Bonnie's hand off of his shoulder he regretted the loss of that warm touch.

"Lose your patience? Or have you just become too comfortable in your Martha Stewart routine and my company."

Damon was lost for words, he hadn't expected Bonnie to be so forthright about what was bothering him. He _was_ comfortable. This _wasn't _getting old. This place was starting to feel like a home instead of an afterlife. Without realising it, he was lost in the clear warm depths of Bonnie's eyes.

The kind of green a flannel shirt wearing guy might feel at home in.

And it was nothing like the darkness he was used to dwelling in.

"You started it." She whispered, there were tears forming in her eyes, ones like wet fire. Angry, she bit on her lip before she speaking again. "Remember, you did Damon. Not me. _You_."

"The stupid decorated pancakes, the stupid French and the stupid flannel shirt. _You started it._" Accusatory and angry she continued, forcing Damon's eyes to further widen in shock.

"We show up here one day and you start making me eggs and toast!" Her brief pause to laugh at the absurdity wasn't meant to lighten the mood and it did no such thing as Bonnie's anger intensified at the situation she was in. "You cook, eat, chat and clean like a Stepford wife dialled to sunshine setting 100! You dance at the sink to 80's classics as you wash up afterwards! _Sober_ dancing Damon. I didn't even _know_ that was possible for you."

Damon tried to look away but her desperate stare wouldn't allow it.

"You wanted this." She was almost breathless from the furious whispering and swallowed hard as she continued to fight the tears in her eyes. "And I went along with it because it sure as hell beats the alternative of shaking in my boots at the thought of when this will st-stop…"

Her voice cut off and the tears began to fall despite her best efforts.

"- and our world ends. Like it was supposed to."

Damon flinched at hearing those last words. It took a moment for him to regain his composure and without thought he bridged the gap between him and former witch with a sudden hug. Bonnie let out a small sob as he pulled her into his arms and Damon fought back the urge to join her in her soft cries.

But he failed.

He couldn't care less if Bonnie could feel the wetness of his tears on the top of her head as he clung onto her like if the world around the began to fall apart only she would remain impervious to the doom. "This is good." The words fell out of his mouth barely audible.

"This is good." He repeated in achingly emotional tone. "Perfect even"

_That's the problem_

Bonnie slowly pulled away to look him in the eyes. His face was unashamedly wet with tears. His head nodding as his lips stretched into a smile before letting out a laugh.

"It is so incredibly perfect." He laughed and cried all at once for Bonnie to hear and see.

"And so I'm shaking…in my flannel shirt. Scared forever is not enough. That I'm a greedy sonofabitch who wants more and will _always _keep on wanting more"

Bonnie smiled through tears of her own before tiptoeing to plant a tender kiss onto Damon's cheek. She barely had time to pull away and look for a response when Damon's mouth covered hers.

He wanted more and so he held onto her and took his sweet time satisfying his need for more until Damon could almost feel the heat of the kiss searing a hole in the pit of his belly.

Breathing heavily he withdrew and glanced over Bonnie's face for an answer.

And an answer was what he got in the form of a nod.

Over 267 sunny mornings, sweet dishes and steaming coffee and suddenly Damon felt the counter on their afterlife reset. It was Day One again. The first of countless more blissful breakfasts and the eternal tasting of Bonnie Bennett's lips.


End file.
